


Blood in the water

by cuneifire (orphan_account)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 20th Century, F/M, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 10:02:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20062201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/cuneifire
Summary: There are no good options in this war.





	Blood in the water

1941

.

Ukraine falls to the ground when she hears the gunshot fires, rolling into a burned corpse of a bush. Her knees knock together, nails digging into the frozen dirt.

“_Чому-“ _She pants out as breath leaves her lungs, chest pressing uncomfortably against the stripped ground.

A bullet whizzes above her ears, and she ducks again.

Tears heat at her eyes, but she blinks hard enough to keep them back. She does not want to get dehydrated. She does not want to fall unconscious. She does not want them to take her alive.

Scattered pieces of rocks dig into her elbows, sharp remnant of a stick protruding from the ground to poke her thin ribs. She does not cry.

Digging the tip of her black worn boots into the ash coated dirt, she brings herself up to her hands and knees, leveling her gaze to see if there was still far-away fire she could not hear.

Nothing. She stands, then crouches, and then runs to a nearby clearing of somehow not scorched trees.

She crawls through the wreckage, grasping for something, _anything _to hold on to; to hide behind, to shoot from.

Her gaze surveys the land, trying not to think of whose land it is, of what has happened to it, of what she’s heard has happened to _him-_

Her vision dives and swims as she sees Rus.

“_що-” _

She blink rapidly, noticing his cold, gaze slamming down upon hr, takes in a breath and-

“Brother.” She just manages to gasp out before a rifle slams into her chest, and arms hit the dry dirt of her brother’s country.

“Rus-“ She just manages, trying to roll over to see his face, fingers reaching for the pistol at her side, she can’t grasp the gun on her back, it’s too far and if she did he’d see the Iron Cross fixed to it, and then he’d really end her, and then he’d never forgive her, and then he’d kill her and be alone and she would never get to help him or hold him or tell him she’s sorry or make him apologize-

Tears welled up in her eyes, lips trembling.

“-Please be quiet.” Rus says silently, lips barely moving (although she cannot see him too well; her face is pressed into the dirt somewhere near him, and when she tilts her chin hair falls out from under her helmet to obscure her vision), face set stern. His eyes are obscured; she cannot see them. Which is a shame, as he has rather pretty eyes. Nice eyes, she thinks. Eyes that do not deserve to see this. 

Her fingers curl in the dirt as she pushes herself up, tears watering the stripped ground. The pistol feels cold in her hands.

She pushes herself up, bones in her shoulders cracking.

Her bother eyes her, lips stern, gun trained to her heart.

She will not die if he pulls the trigger, she knows. But the fact that he is pointing it makes her chest ache.

“Brother, I-“ She says, hands flitting over her uniform, the eagle and the swastika and the hell black boots, trying to come up with the words, trying to tell him, trying to explain.

She finds nothing, in neither Russian nor Ukrainian nor actions.

It only comes back to that one word, - _Чому, why? _ It’s the only thing she can think as she sobs out an apology, mangled even in her own language which her brother does not speak nor understand nor care for.

Her brother’s eyes meet hers, dirt stained across his cheek. She reaches up to wipe it away.

He snatches her by the hand, fingernail carving half moons into her bare wrist.

“Sister.” He says, the presence of the gun near her ribs ever present. His eyes flit to her cap, her disarrayed uniform. His expression does not change, aside from his eye. Which twitches.

“What are you doing here?” He asks, voice low, as if someone had taken sandpaper to his throat, starved him and beat him and killed his people until he could not bear to talk anymore.

She felt tears welling up in her eyes again, looking over him. She tried to piece it together, juxtapose the look on his face now with when he’d shoved her down for asking for more grain just eight years ago, his boot on her back and fingers digging into still ash coated dirt.

She’d been starving then. Now, she was hungry.

His gaze steels as his eyes meet hers.

“You have the wrong uniform.” He says, and her eyes widen at the little downwards twitch of his lips. Her uniform compresses against her chest as she looks onto him, biting back the string of apologies that immediately comes to her thoughts, thinking her people wouldn’t want this, she is not supposed to show him mercy, he has hurt them, or at least let others hurt her, and she cannot abide that, cannot let him harm her people, _hurt _her people. He is not allowed to touch them.

But she cannot keep herself from wanting to pull him to her, wipe away the tired expression from his face and tell him it will all be alright, that Germany will not destroy him, that he is her little Vanya and he is too strong for that. But that is not what she should think.

The gun remains jabbed in her side.

Her brother stills.

“Rus, I-“

He looks at her again; uniform and all, expression stilling.

“Sister.” He says, softer this time, as if his voice may break. “Why are you here?” He asks, as if he does not know the answer.

But he does, she knows he does, and she forces tears back before they can come to her eyes again.

“Don’t you want to be one with me? Sister?” he asks, eyes turning to her, glazed and dark. “Why would you do this?” His fingers press up to the lapel over her collarbone, gazing at her uniform- different from hers.

“You were supposed to join me.” He says, almost smiling in that way that doesn’t reach his eyes, never reaches his eyes. His fingers tighten on her collar with a sharp tug, and she lurches forwards, hands slamming before him, just grazing the side of his ripped uniform.

“I-“ She says, breath caged in her lungs.

“-You were supposed to be with me, sister.” He says, eyes staring down like cracked icicles from outside a barred window.

“You were supposed to- “ He says, although the syllable _help _is on his tongue, but his jaw clamps shut and he simply looks at her, slight twisted smile still askew on his face.

And then she looks at him, truly straightens her eyesight and blinks the tears away until she can assess him, looks over (_after) _him.

_No. _She clenches her jaw, grits her teeth. She will not allow this.

But his eyes are dark hollows, his lip split and dirt stains all over his uniform (she does not like his uniform; it sends shivers down her back to see him like that)

Her brother looks sick. Sick and dying.

His teeth chatter in the cold, which she has never seen before. His clothes are worn. His eyes are vacant, blank, with only the barest trace of life.

She wonders if his gun even has bullets.

“Brother.” She says, clenching her fingers around the pistol cradled in her hand, gritting her teeth. _This is for your own good, for your people, your brother has done nothing but hurt you and you cannot let it happen any longer, Germany may be harsh but he will let you have what you desire._

_Even if this is required. _

She shifts her shoulders back, steadying around the grip of the pistol.

And rises to her feet, raising it.

Her brother blinks, shivering.

“Do _not-“ _ She says, but the words fail on her tongue; she does not know what she wants to say. _Do not test me, do not hurt my people, do not die. _

_Do not make me be the one to pull the trigger. _

_Please._

“Do not treat me like-“ The words stick in her throat, so she spits them out. “-Like I am simply a subordinate to you. I am-“ She stumbles over the German pronunciation, but she’s better than her brother or her sister, she can say it. “_Reichskommissariat Ukraine, __україна” _

“_Украина_” She whispers much more quietly; she doubts he speaks German, she scoffs at the idea that he would ever bother with her language.

“I am my own person, Rus. And it is time you listened to that.” She says, fingers tightening on the grip over the pistol, staring him down.

His eyes stay at the eagle affixed to her collar. His expression does not change.

“Are you going to pull the trigger?” Is all he asks, voice calm.

It occurs to her that he is bleeding. She has to keep her expression neutral; she does not know whether she would like to smile or burst into tears.

His uniform is stained red.

She stares.

_Are you going to pull the trigger?_

The pistol, the Mauser, weighs heavy in her hand. Her fingers hoover over the trigger.

His eyes meet hers.

_Are you going to pull the trigger? _

Her people. Digging for three grains of wheat in the most beautiful summer. A blunt blade and a large hand to her throat.

_Yes._

A smile. Arms wrapping around her. ‘Don’t you want to help me, sister?’. _Real, _maybe just.

_No. _

She straightens her shoulders, cracks her spine, watches her vision split in two.

She shoots.

The bullet cracks through the air and hits him, blood blooming on his chest to match the dried red that stains his lips.

“Rus.” She says, weakly, fingers trembling.

_Her people. _She thinks, as his head tilts, almost lolling but not quite. She did this for her people.

For them, she’ll do anything. Affix the swastika to her chest, obey Germany.

Shoot her brother.

She thinks back to just nine years ago, Rus leaving with sacks of grain and watching her people grow thinner, until bones stuck out from their chests and cheek protruded and eyes turned the colour of blood and, and-

“You deserved it.” She thinks.

And then Rus’ gaze snaps up to her, blood drying on his neck, and she realizes she said it out loud.

“That’s what you-“ She swallows the lump in her throat. “-you shouldn’t have done it, Rus.”

“And for that, I will -“ She can say it, spit out the word, _never _and then _forgive_, and then finally _you_. But Rus interrupts her, cuts the words from her throat.

“-And for that you will pay, sister.” He says, eyes meeting hers, steel and blood, hand pressed to his side, where his pistol is.

His snaps it out of it carrier, and aims it at her.

“Leave.” He says.

His hands do not shake, but his eye twitches.

“Rus, I-“ She says, trying to keep her expression from falling to pieces, _Rus, I didn’t mean to- I did but- should you- can you- why would you-_

“_Leave, _Ukraina.” He spits out, and she looks down at him, trying to say something, anything, an apology, a put down, a promise, _anything, _and she says it-

“I love you, Rus.” She says, staring at the barrel of a gun. She does not say _I am sorry. _The words stick in her throat, and she _will not _say them. He has done too much for her to apologize.

He pauses. She does not see his expression, hidden between hair and helmet and steel and blood.

“You do not shoot people you love.”

“You do not starve people you love.” She responds, shaking only slightly.

“Whoever said I loved you?” He responds, and she wonders if it’s mocking or curious- she can’t tell. The words carve their way into her chest cavity either way.

The thoughts and words tangle in her mind, so much she barely thinks them before-

“You did.” She says.

She doesn’t think he nods.

“-That changed.”

The words ring out in the air, louder than gunfire.

Ukraine swallows.

“I- suppose it did.” She says, watches her brother stare up at her with blood stained eyes, and _I’m the older sister wasn’t I supposed to protect him? _But his hand’s on the trigger of the gun; she can’t protect him from the world, from violence, not even from herself, especially not from herself.

She leaves without another breath, another thought, another chance.

She stumbles through ash worn land that used to be fertile and green, wondering when she had become this.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes
> 
> Чому-Why (Ukrainian)
> 
> Що- What (Ukrainian)
> 
> Україна, Украина- Ukraine (Ukrainian and Russian, respectively)
> 
> -Reichskommissariat Ukraine- Name given by the Germans to occupied Ukraine. 
> 
> -Mauser; The Mauser C96 was a German gun, sometimes used by Soviets if stolen off Germans.
> 
> -German invasion of Ukraine began on June 22, 1941.
> 
> -During the Second World War, many Ukrainians welcomed the arrival of he Germans, seeing them as a better option than the Soviets/Russians, who less than eight years ago had inflicted a forced starvation of Ukraine (known as the Holodomor); an event which killed anywhere from 2.4-7.5 million people.


End file.
